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Wednesday, July 20, 2016

How Obama Left Us More Racially Divided Than Ever - John Gibbs

by John Gibbs

Why even many in the black community are happy the Obama era is coming to an end.

My mother is a huge fan of
Barack Obama. The house is decked out with portraits of the president
and Michelle, including some from his inauguration, which she attended.
I’ve never seen her this excited for any president, including Bill
Clinton.

This type of sentiment is typical of many black Americans, who have a
brimming sense of pride over the first black president. This is not so
much because they agree with his policies—in fact, many black Americans, while Democrats, identify as conservative—but
rather due to a sense of victory that after so many years of slavery
and segregation, we’ve finally arrived at the point where the American
people are willing to accept a black president.

Yet all is not well. Under President Obama, many black folks think racial division has increased,
not decreased. A family friend, who is a Democrat and an Obama
supporter, recently curiously remarked, “I’ll be glad when Obama is out
of office.” He said this not as an affront to President Obama, but as an
acknowledgement that the state of racial affairs seems to have gotten
worse under him.

Many whites feel the same way, which is one reason Donald Trump is popular. His outright rejection of political correctness that many Americans are sick of
seems like a step in the right direction to his supporters, who hope
removing PC will allow for honest dialogue without fear of being called
racist amidst an environment that has become increasingly charged and
accusatory.

Either You’re an Optimist or Pessimist

My view of America is that we are a place of great promise and
opportunity, where someone like me, who is the grandchild of illiterate
black Southern sharecroppers, can achieve success and reach the American
dream. We are a place occupied by fair-minded, hard-working people
whose culture and values have built a nation that is the envy of the
world. I am proud to be a part of that culture.

Our Founders, while imperfect and a product of their times, were
visionary heroes who made hard choices and compromises to give us the
successful system we have today. Because Americans are good, we’ve
worked hard over time to right the wrongs in our society that our
Founding Fathers could not eliminate in their time. In summary, we are a
fundamentally decent people blessed to live in a phenomenal land with a
rich heritage.

But not so for President Obama. His view of our nation seems to be
very different than mine and that of many other Americans. I believe
that when President Obama thinks of America, more so than a place of
hope or opportunity, he thinks of a place where racist white Christian
fundamentalists came here from Europe, committed genocide against Native
Americans, enslaved and segregated black people, denied women, gays,
and other minorities their rights, and used capitalism and a rigged
legal system to oppress poor people for centuries. He also believes this
is still continuing today.

Given this view of America as an evil place in need of forceful
justice for her sins, the president’s overarching goal has been to
eliminate what he sees as the structural, institutionalized
discrimination that defines America. He has done this by taking every
opportunity to see disparities between groups as evidence of
discrimination, then using all available resources to fight this
perceived discrimination by going to war against the Americans he
believes are responsible for it, who are almost always whites, men,
police, and Christians.

This strategy has had two effects: 1) It’s caused the alleged victims
of the perceived discrimination to become more militant, hostile, and
only willing to make demands and not willing to engage in dialogue due
to increasing their sense of victimhood, and 2) It’s caused the alleged
perpetrators of the perceived discrimination to feel unfairly blamed for
problems that are not their fault, thus less willing to engage in
dialogue with people who will do nothing but accuse them of wrongdoing.

In other words, both sides are moving away from each other. This
means that, contrary to unifying the nation, the president’s leadership
has caused division and discord.

Discrimination Is Not the Biggest Problem for Minorities

In addition to failing to unify the nation, the president’s
leadership philosophy has also failed to solve the underlying problems
supposedly caused by discrimination. This is due to his failure to
understand two critical truths: 1) Unequal outcomes do not constitute proof of discrimination.
Thus policies attempting to produce equal results between groups
through eliminating discrimination will accomplish nothing when the
unequal outcomes are not caused by discrimination in the first place,
and 2) While actual discrimination exists, most of the ills minorities
face in today’s America are not caused by discrimination, but rather by
factors such as complete family breakdown engendered by the welfare state and reduced employment prospects due to globalization, illegal immigration,
and automation. So again, policies to remedy discrimination will do
nothing to solve problems that are not caused by discrimination in the
first place.

Sure enough, this is exactly what the data shows.
With the exception of the unemployment rate, black Americans are worse
off in many categories under President Obama, including: labor force
participation, the percentage of people below the poverty line, real
median income, the number of black people on food stamps, the percentage
of black people who own homes, and the black-white test score gap in education.
Thus, far from unifying the nation, and far from ending the social ills
he believes are caused by discrimination, President Obama has—perhaps
unwittingly—caused America to become more polarized and divided, and
brought us no closer to solving the key problems stunting black
achievement.

John
Gibbs (@realJohnGibbs) has worked at Apple as an engineer on the
iPhone, and has taught technology in Japan, being fluent in Japanese.
John holds a B.S. in computer science from Stanford University and a
master in public administration from Harvard University John F. Kennedy
School of Government.

Source: http://thefederalist.com/2016/07/13/how-obama-left-us-more-racially-divided-than-ever/Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.